To take a bit of a different perspectives, there's actually a few million people living at a few hours drive from Champagne, the region. If you live in Reims i

To take a bit of a different perspectives, there's actually a few million people living at a few hours drive from Champagne, the region. If you live in Reims it's a 20~30 min drive to a producer, from Paris it's roughly a 2h drive. In 2h you come to the producer's winery, taste a few of their production, and come home with a box of 6 or 12 pretty good bottles that you got a fairly low price (20 ~ 50 euro a bottle is realistic). You can drink them in a 2 or 3 month span, and do the trip again to another winery. For these few millions of people, Champagne is not _that_ much a luxury, nor a rare drink, yet it still tastes pretty good. National Champagne consumption is healthy and varied, and Champagne is still in competition with all the other crazy good wines of all sort (including other sparkling whites from France, Italy, Spain etc.). There is definitely hyped brands, and Champagne getting out of France is at such a markup that it makes it harder to go for taste only ignoring the rest of the cultural markings, but I'd argue wineries from the Champagne regions are still extremely good at their craft and also live in a competitive environment in regards to taste and quality.